Vehicles, such as hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) utilize a high voltage battery in their architecture. The high voltage battery provides power to the vehicle via a high voltage bus. It is common for these high voltage batteries to utilize high voltage contactors that couple or decouple power to and from devices on the vehicle. When an ignition-on position is achieved, the contactors are commanded to a closed position to couple the high voltage battery to the vehicle devices. Conversely, upon an ignition-off position, the contactors decouple the vehicle devices from the high voltage battery. In conventional vehicles having a high voltage bus, rapid changes in the position of the ignition cause rapid opening and closing (i.e., cycling) of the contactors. It is commonly known that cycling of the contactors may result in overheating of the contactor components (e.g., precharge resistors, circuits, and the like), unnecessary contactor component wear, and noise vibration and harshness (NVH) anomalies.
The present invention was conceived in view of these and other disadvantages of conventional vehicle systems.